


the virtues of rest

by subjectiveobjection



Series: postscript [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Night Terrors, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 03:50:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19782658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjectiveobjection/pseuds/subjectiveobjection
Summary: when hawkeye comes back from korea, he can't sleep.





	the virtues of rest

When Hawkeye steps off the plane in the States, the first thing he does is stuff himself into a bathroom with his suitcase and yank out his Hawaiian shirt. He tears off his army clothes, replacing the dull green with multicolored fabric, and only when the civvies hit his skin does he feel some semblance of normalcy. He might be thousands of miles from the Colonel and Margaret and Charles and everyone  _ (and BJ, _ his brain whispers every time he takes a breath,  _ you’re thousands of miles from BJ and you’ll most likely never see him again-) _ but he’s  _ home. _ That’s gotta count for something.

He steps out of the bathroom and marvels at the dust-free air. There’s only one other person who isn’t in army drab- a nurse, going by the red cross on her bag- and Hawkeye salutes her with his left hand for a second before she’s swept away by the tide of green. He turns his gaze to the exit and pushes his way through the crowd, heedless of the fact that his suitcase is careening this way and that (everyone is too happy about being home to say anything). He catches sight of a mustache in the distance, and even though it’s an even darker black than his own hair and it belongs to a man who is closer to 5’5” than BJ’s height, his heart twists.

He keeps walking. He’s home, and home is no place to dwell on a war.

“Ben!” someone calls. Hawkeye’s head swivels.

“Dad!” he calls back, making his way around a smiling couple, a father and daughter, a family converging on a soldier, and then he finally reaches his father. Daniel Pierce looks old- much older than Hawkeye remembers- his grey hair is thinner and whiter, his face looks more gaunt and wrinkled, and his lanky frame is even more bony, but when he pulls Hawkeye into a hug, he’s still as solid as ever. Hawkeye has to lean down a little to hug his dad, but he still feels like he’s a little kid, drowning in his father’s suit and clinging to his neck. Hawkeye tears up a little, and he holds onto his dad even tighter, trying to remember if his cologne had this much pine in it before. After another moment, his dad releases him, and holds him at arm’s length to study him.

“Ben, you’re much too skinny,” his dad pronounces after an initial assessment.

“So’re you, Dad,” Hawkeye replies. They pause, and it’s not exactly uncomfortable, but Hawkeye hasn’t exactly been too comfortable with silences lately. “Can we swing by Mae’s diner on the way home?”

His dad’s eyebrows furrow. “Mae’s closed down. She wanted to retire, and with her son…”

_ KIA, _ Hawkeye wants to say. Howard Washington had gone to war almost the day it broke out- one of the first draftees, even before Hawkeye, and he’d died early, too. “Oh.”

“Yeah. He was gonna take over, and Mae didn’t want anyone else, so…”

The flame of resentment that’s been burning in him ever since his mom died flares higher, and he briefly contemplates hopping a plane bound for DC and kicking Eisenhower and Truman’s teeth in. “Uh. That burger shop, then? I don’t think I’ve had real food in three years.”

His dad presses his lips together for a second. “God. I mean- Ben, you were  _ twenty-eight _ when you left, and now-”

“Dad, I’m not a senior citizen now. I’m young! I’m virile! I’m like a bull! Or is it an ox?”

His dad looks at him, looks straight past the bullshit in a way that only he, the Colonel, BJ, and Margaret can. “You look more like me now than I did at that age.”

“Sure, I’ve got a few grey hairs, but those have been there since the beginning! Making sure Frank Burns didn’t accidentally slice into himself instead of a patient was a hard job, you know.” Hawkeye tosses his luggage into the back of the car. “It’s  _ fine, _ Dad.”

“Agree to disagree, son.”

“Have it your way.” They slide into the car, and Hawkeye relaxes for the first time since he left Korea.

…

The first dream isn’t something he hasn’t experienced before. There’s blood everywhere, and the nurses are all screaming at him to stop trying and move on because they’ve got dozens of patients outside, and when he wakes up, he’s panting like he’s done a marathon. He’s had hundreds of these nightmares before, and it’s not anything he can’t handle.

Then he has two in one night, and he shrugs it off. He’s had nights like this before- nightmare after nightmare, invading his head until he just climbs out of bed and deals with the day. A night stretches into a week, and then two, and then almost a month after he comes home, he has a dream that’s  _ different _ from all the others.

_ He stands in the OR, his feet aching like there’s no tomorrow, blood splattered across his front. “Where’s Potter?” he yells. “We need him here!” _

_ Nobody replies beyond a shrug, and Klinger brings in the next patient. “His right arm got crushed,” Klinger says. “Nobody knows how. He’s the last patient, though, so…” _

_ Hawkeye looks down at the arm, dismayed. This is going to most likely end in amputation. “Can anyone help me?” he calls, trying to figure out how to save the limb. _

_ “I am elbow-deep in bowel, so if you’d like me to-” _

_ “Thanks, Charles,” Hawkeye says, rolling his eyes. “Beej?” _

_ “Sorry, Hawk,” BJ replies. “Maybe when Potter comes in, you can get his help.” _

_ Hawkeye sighs, gaze still fixed on the arm. It’s a long shot, but he’s gotta try to save it. He’s got time. _

_ “Scalpel,” he says, holding out his hand. _

_ “Scalpel,” Margaret replies, handing him the familiar instrument. _

_ He probes the arm- what’s left of it, really. He frowns, but he raises the scalpel, and then a hand shoots up and clamps around his wrist. _

_ He looks down the table, to where Ginger is sitting with the mask pressed down on the patient. “Get that mask off him!” Hawkeye yells, suddenly filled with an indescribable panic. “Get it off! You’re smothering him!” The hand grows tighter around his wrist, and his heart starts pounding faster. “Ginger, please!” _

_ Ginger’s eyes widen, and she lifts the mask. The patient gasps and shoots up into a sitting position- a patient who is too familiar, what with the bushy brows and eye bags and- oh, God,  _ Potter.  _ “Colonel!” Hawkeye cries. _

_ “You better save my arm,” the Colonel growls. “Or I’ll kick your butt from here to Saturday. I can’t do surgery or ride my horse or paint with just one arm, boy.” _

_ He falls back on the table, and Ginger puts the mask back on him. “Doctor, I’d have to recommend an amputation,” Margaret says, her voice too calm for someone operating on a man that’s practically her father. _

_ “But- didn’t you hear the Colonel?” Hawkeye says desperately. “Margaret, he said-” _

_ “Pierce, the Colonel is God knows where, out on his horse, probably,” she snaps.  _ Oh God, _ Hawkeye thinks. _ Sophie. _ “Now tend to this patient!” _

_ “But-” _

_ “Doctor, his pressure is getting low,” Ginger warns. _

_ “We don’t have time to save the arm,” Margaret says. “Doctor, you need to amputate.” _

_ Hawkeye looks around at them. Don’t they  _ realize?  _ They’re operating on the Colonel, and- “Doctor, his pulse is thready,” Ginger says. _

_ “Don’t do it, Pierce!” the Colonel yells from under the mask, his eyes snapping open. _

_ “Colonel, I-” _

_ “I can’t get a pulse!” Ginger yells. “Doctor, if you’re gonna do something-” _

_ “Don’t!” Potter yells, voice muffled through the rubber. “Pierce, don’t you dare do anything that isn’t saving my-” And then he goes silent, and the absence of his voice is sickening. _

_ Hawkeye’s eyes dart around. He pauses for a second, and then he climbs up on the table and starts compressions. “No pulse!” Ginger says. _

_ “Pierce, do something!” Margaret exclaims. _

_ “I am!” Hawkeye exclaims, already out of breath. He’s been operating for nearly twenty hours- he can’t do this much longer. “Margaret, get ready to take over compressions!” _

_ “Pierce, why aren’t you doing anything?” _

_ “What- I  _ am!” _ Hawkeye looks around frantically for someone, anyone, who can help. “BJ!” _

_ “Hawkeye, I’m kinda busy!” BJ calls back. _

_ “Guys!  _ Someone! _ This is the  _ Colonel, _ for God’s sake, we can’t just let him-” _

_ “You’re letting him die!” Margaret yells. “Pierce, you’re letting him-” _

Hawkeye shoots bolt upright, Margaret’s exclamations still ringing in his ears. His heart is pounding so loud that he’s sure the people halfway down the block can hear him, and he’s drenched in sweat, as if he really was doing compressions. “Shit,” he whispers hoarsely, reaching out in the dark for his glass of water. He misjudges the distance, and the glass falls onto the ground and shatters with an earsplitting noise. “Shit, shit, shit, shit-” He turns on his bedside lamp, and he appraises the mess on the ground. Maybe if he’s really quiet, his dad won’t wake, and he can clean this up.

The floorboards squeak outside, and then Hawkeye’s door creaks open. “Ben?” his dad asks.  _ Shit. _

“Don’t come in!” Hawkeye calls. “Dad, there’s glass-”

“I see that,” his dad says, making his way across the floor.

“Sorry, Dad. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” comes the reply. His dad is still talking like he’s trying not to startle a deer or something. “We can clean it up.”

“I can do it.” Hawkeye looks at his hands as his dad takes a seat on the bed. He knows it was a dream, that Potter is probably alive and well in Hannibal, Missouri, but he’s still surprised to see clean skin instead of blood-soaked gloves. “I’ll do it, Dad-”

“It’s okay, Ben, we can clean it up in the morning. It was just a cup.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Good night, Dad.” Hawkeye leans back against his headboard and pulls the covers up to his chin. His dad furrows his brows, looking like he’s about to say something, but he stands up after a moment.

“Good night, Ben.”

The next night, it’s Charles that he’s operating on, and Hawkeye has never heard Charles’s voice so desperate. And then it’s Radar, and Klinger, and Mulcahy and Margaret and Henry and Sidney and Trapper, and then it’s his dad.

That one is particularly bad, and when he wakes up, heart going a mile a minute and vomit rising in his throat, he creeps down the hall to his dad’s room and peeks in. He can’t shake the feeling that crimson stains will spread across the white sheets the second he turns away, and he ends up standing in the doorway for nearly ten minutes before he can turn around.

…

Daniel Pierce isn’t a superstitious person at all, but when he catches sight of his son in the mornings, he can’t help but remember the stories that Eve had told him when they first started dating, of faeries replacing healthy children with sickly ones. Ben’s skin is as pale as it had been when he’d come home from Korea, and the bags under his eyes are just as large. Every time Daniel brings up Ben’s appearance, the kid does anything to deflect questions. When he falls asleep in the middle of washing dishes, though, that’s when Daniel decides to take some action.

He pulls out a piece of paper and a pen. He’d love to write to the Major Freedman that Ben had mentioned a few times, but he’s got no information about the man, and he’s not going to go through Ben’s things to find any, if it’s even there. He settles for writing to BJ Hunnicutt- he’s dropped enough letters off at the post office to know the address.

_ To BJ Hunnicutt _

_ 728 Williamson Drive _

_ Mill Valley, CA _

_ From Daniel Pierce _

_ 97 Lake Anne Street _

_ Crabapple Cove, ME _

_ Dear Mr. Hunnicutt, _

_ From the way that my son talks about you, you’re a very good friend of his. I would greatly appreciate it if you could send me Major Sidney Freedman’s information, as I do not think that Ben would take kindly to me asking him. Hopefully you are well, and you and your family are welcome in Crabapple Cove anytime. _

_ Best wishes, _

_ Daniel Pierce, MD _

Daniel looks down at the letter (more of a note, really) and nearly scoffs. He’d always been bad at writing letters to people he doesn’t know, and how best to write a letter to one’s son’s best friend from a traumatizing war?

“What’re you doing, Dad?” Ben calls, walking into the living room. Daniel jumps a little, but he manages to fold the letter over without seeming too suspicious- at least, that’s what he hopes.

“Just finishing up a letter before I head to the office.” Daniel looks up at his son, and he’s taken aback at how much worse the light streaming through the large windows makes him look. “Son, you really should get some rest. Take the day off and take a nap.”

“I’m  _ fine.” _ Ben rolls his eyes and turns away to face the shelves, running his fingers along the spines of books.

“That wasn’t a question, Ben. You’re taking the day off.”

Daniel stands and picks up the letter and his keys, ignoring his son’s protests, and walks outside. “I don’t want to see you at work!” he calls before he shuts the door.

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Korea has taken a piece of his son, and he’d like to have a conversation with whatever jackass decided that going to war was a good idea.

…

BJ doesn’t sleep like he did before Korea- he used to sleep like the dead, and now any little sound will wake him, his brain already convinced that their little Mill Valley house is under attack. It’s mostly a curse, but the only silver lining is that when Erin has a bad dream or Peggy has to get up to wander the house, he’s up and ready to face the problem.

On this particular night, it’s Peg. She’s tossing and turning next to him, and BJ can tell from her breathing that she’s not asleep. “Peggy?” BJ whispers. “You okay?”

She turns over again, this time to face him. Her brown eyes are practically luminous in what little moonlight filters through their curtains, and for the millionth time, he wonders how he got so lucky. “I’m fine, honey, I just can’t sleep.”

“Any reason?”

“No, it’s just- well, you’re heading off for your conference in the morning, and it’s all the way in Denver.”  _ And it’s my first trip away from you two since Korea, _ BJ thinks.

“It’ll all be fine, darling.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to be worried.” She smiles a little, and he smiles back at her.

“We’ve still got some pie in the fridge. You want to get up and eat?”

“Oh, no, I promised that we’d eat the rest with Erin. We can eat the ice cream, though.”

“What’s pie without ice cream?”

“You’re right. What about cookies?” Peg asks.

BJ sits up and tosses off the cover. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They walk downstairs, careful not to wake Erin, and Peg pulls out the giant container of cookies. BJ yawns for a split second, and then he feels something hit him on the nose. He opens his eyes and closes his mouth. “No, open your mouth!” Peg whispers, grinning. She’s got a chunk of cookie in her hand, and who is BJ to deny her? He opens his mouth as wide as he can. She squints, and after a second, she throws. The chunk lands directly in his mouth.

“Nice!” BJ crows quietly, through his mouthful of cookie.

“Bow to your queen!” Peggy whispers. BJ bows, and then he snatches the rest of the cookie from Peggy’s hand.

“My turn!”

He leaves for Denver on two hours of sleep and a belly full of cookies and milk (and pie and ice cream, because Erin had woken up to BJ’s victorious whooping after he had thrown a piece into Peg’s mouth from halfway across the living room).

…

Peg stands next to her daughter and waves until the car disappears into the distance, her stomach still a little unsettled.  _ He’ll be fine. _ She turns to Erin, and she asks, “Do you want to check the mail with me?”

“Yeah!” Erin exclaims. Peg smiles, and takes her daughter’s hand in her own. They walk to the mailbox, and Peg hoists Erin up so she can open the mailbox on her own. There’s not much today- just a letter from Peg’s college friend Delilah, and another from Crabapple Cove.  _ Must be Hawkeye, _ Peg thinks, smiling a little. They’ve started to write each other, Peg including bits to him in BJ’s letters and Hawkeye including a few paragraphs to her in his own letters back.

The name on the envelope catches her eye.  _ Daniel Pierce. _

Suddenly, a swirl of negative thoughts takes up residence in her head. It’s addressed to BJ, but she’s sure that he won’t mind if she opens it. “Let’s go back inside,” she tells Erin.

Once they’re inside, though, Peg can’t bring herself to open it, and she spends the morning telling herself that she’s too busy to read it. Once Erin is down for her nap, though, Peg can’t find an excuse. She opens the envelope. Her stomach is flipping the same way it did whenever she read the darker parts of BJ’s letters from Korea, and she slides the letter out with no shortage of apprehension. The second she reads it, she calls to the Denver airport and asks if her husband is there.

“Peg?” BJ asks, static crackling through the line. “Is everything okay?”

“You got a letter from Daniel Pierce,” Peg says. “I opened it.”

“Oh, God-”

“Hawkeye’s fine, honey, it’s just- Dr. Pierce just wanted to know Sidney Freedman’s information. So, uh…”

“Nothing else in the letter?”

“Nothing.”

BJ sighs, and Peg can tell that he’s dragging his hand over his jaw. “Peg, I’ve got no goddamn clue where Sidney is right now- I mean, I know he’s still in Asia, working with the Army, but it was hard enough getting people on the phone when we were all in the same country. It might take a while before anyone can reach him.”

This time, it’s Peg’s turn to sigh. “I mean, if it was something urgent, Dr. Pierce would’ve said it, right?”

“I don’t- Peg, I mean-”

“Yeah,” Peg says. “I know, darling.”

“Give me- hold on, Peggy, I’m gonna just-” The line crackles, but Peg can still hear voices on the other side of the line. After a few seconds, the voices grow louder, and a few seconds after that, BJ picks up the phone again. “They’ve got tickets from here to Maine for this afternoon. Do you think…”

“Go,” Peg tells him firmly. “He needs you. And- darling?”

“Yeah?”

“Give him a kiss from me.”

She can practically hear his grin on the other side of the phone. “Will do, Peggy. I love you. Tell Erin I love her too.”

“I will. And I love you too.” She hangs up the phone.

…

Hawkeye is on his fifth straight day of house arrest when he decides to try one more time for a nap. Hypnos hasn’t stopped by Hawkeye’s room for the past two days, ever since Hawkeye had dreamt for the third time about BJ- golden, sun-soaked BJ- bleeding out on a table because Hawkeye couldn’t save him. The shrapnel in BJ’s chest had punctured his lungs and caused a cardiac tamponade, and Hawkeye can’t shake the feeling that he could’ve done more.  _ It was a fucking dream, so grow up and get some sleep so you can go back to work. _ His eyes feel like they’ve had weights glued onto them, yet he can’t calm his brain down enough to slip into unconsciousness.

He opens his eyes and sits up on the couch. “This is pointless,” he mutters to himself. He gets up to make himself a coffee, and then there’s a knock on the door. Coffee will have to wait, then. He walks over to the door and swings it open, and- is he having a lucid dream? “I’ve gotta say, this is a lot better than any other dream I’ve had recently,” he tells BJ. “But, uh… how do I wake myself up? Because- well, no offense, but my subconscious is probably gonna have you die sometime soon, and I’d rather avoid that.”

BJ looks good- he’s much more tan, and the godforsaken mustache now has a light beard to accompany it. It’s a strange departure from his usual dreams- in those, BJ has his mustache, and he looks too pale and too skinny, not quite like this veritable Greek god. Well, he’d always looked like a Greek god, but now he’s just… more godly. Or Greek. “What?” BJ asks.

“You’re supposed to look at your fingers, right? Or a clock?” Hawkeye asks himself. He looks down at his fingers- they look normal. He’s not exactly sure what they’re  _ supposed _ to look like in a dream, but he figures that they’re not supposed to look  _ normal. _

When he looks back up at BJ, the other man looks a little concerned. “Hawkeye, is… is everything all right?”

“Seriously, get out of here. I’m not gonna watch you die,” Hawkeye says. He gives the strange figment- who seems much too solid to be a figment, but Hawkeye isn’t a psychologist- a light push. “I don’t think my idiot brain is going to break its streak anytime soon.”

“Hawkeye, when was the last time you slept?” BJ asks, gently shouldering past Hawkeye and into the house.

“I’m sleeping right now, aren’t I? What sort of stupid question is that?”

BJ pulls him into the house and shuts the door. “Uh… you’re not sleeping.”

“That’s what a dream person would say.”

“I’m flattered to be your  _ dream person,” _ BJ replies, checking Hawkeye’s pulse.

“Hey, what’re you-  _ ow!” _ Hawkeye rubs his stinging arm, and BJ pulls back his hand, looking somewhat apologetic.

“See? You’re awake.”

The world, which has been spinning much too fast for Hawkeye’s liking for the past four days, suddenly seems to screech to a halt. Hawkeye pinches himself- lower on his arm than the spot where BJ slapped him- and the pieces fall into place. “Wait,” he says, slowly raising his gaze to meet BJ’s eyes. “You’re- holy  _ shit, _ Beej, you’re here!” He laughs gleefully, throwing his arms around BJ and burying his face in his neck. BJ wraps himself around Hawkeye almost immediately, pulling him tight.  _ He doesn’t smell like gunpowder, _ Hawkeye notes.  _ In Korea, he always smelled like gunpowder and rubbing alcohol. _

They stand like that for a moment, and then BJ pulls back. “Seriously, when was the last time you slept?”

“Two days ago?” Hawkeye says.

“What the-  _ Hawk!” _ BJ rubs a hand over his beard.

“Look, I can’t sleep, okay?” Hawkeye says, the words bursting out of him like bullets from a machine gun. “I can’t sleep, because whenever I sleep- well, everyone ends up dying.”

BJ nods. “That’s why your dad wanted to find Sidney.”

Hawkeye raises his eyebrows. “My dad is asking around for Sidney?”

“Well, if you haven’t slept in three days-”

“I did that every week for three  _ years!” _

“When we were in a  _ war zone, _ Hawkeye!”

“Well, the war zone has just been temporarily relocated to my  _ head!” _

BJ takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, and Hawkeye suddenly notices that they’re nose to nose. “But you haven’t driven any Jeeps through any walls?”

“No,” Hawkeye replies. “And I’m on house arrest. No patients.”

BJ huffs- a sound that could almost be a laugh, but is firmly on the other side of the tracks. “Okay. Okay, so all you need to do is get some sleep, right?”

“Ha! Tell that to my brain.”

BJ takes Hawkeye’s head in his hands and turns it so his mouth is facing Hawkeye’s ear. “You need to get some sleep.”

Hawkeye snorts and bats BJ’s hands away, even though it feels so  _ good _ to have his hands on him for the first time in over a month. “You’re an idiot.”

“And you’re sleep deprived. Where’s your room?”

“You’ll have to buy me dinner first,” Hawkeye says with a wink.

“Now who’s the idiot?”

“It’s always been you.”

BJ rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth ticks upwards. “Seriously, Hawk. I’m not leaving until you get some rest.”

“That takes away all incentive to sleep, then,” Hawkeye says, the words slipping out of his mouth so fast that he’s barely aware of it. He only really realizes when he sees BJ’s eyebrows go up.  _ Shit. Shiiiiiit. _ “I mean-”

“For what it’s worth,” BJ says hesitantly, “I missed you too.”

_ It’s not the same, _ Hawkeye wants to say. He keeps his mouth shut this time, though, and offers BJ a small smile. “Yeah.”

Hawkeye searches BJ’s face for any indication of what he’s feeling, but he’s always been hard to read, and today is no exception. BJ claps his hands together, startling Hawkeye. “So. Bed.”

“Quite the charmer, aren’t we?” Hawkeye quips as he leads BJ to the staircase. His eyes still hang heavy, and he’s barely sure of what he’s saying, but they make it to Hawkeye’s room without any other Freudian slips.

BJ pushes past him and enters the room. “So this is where you grew up,” he says, turning slowly. “In this room.” There’s not much that can be seen, since the shades are drawn and there’s no light on, but BJ still looks at the room with a fondness that makes Hawkeye’s heart melt a little.

“Well, technically, we had a nursery that I spent two years in, but yeah,” Hawkeye says, feeling suddenly self-conscious. It’s a rare occasion, him feeling self-conscious, and he has no desire to repeat it.

BJ stops his slow oscillation once he faces Hawkeye again. “So. Bed.”

“Bertram James Hunnicutt, I am  _ fine,” _ Hawkeye says. He’s got no energy in him to deal with the inevitable nightmare, even if he  _ does _ manage to fall asleep.

“Bertram James doesn’t suit me.”

“You’re right. Uhh… Bryan James.”

BJ looks at him, unimpressed. Hawkeye’s not sure whether it’s the name that he’s unimpressed with or Hawkeye himself. “Bed.”

“You didn’t add a J name,” Hawkeye says, sitting down on the bed.

“I don’t need one.”

“Oh, so you’re just that amazing, huh.”

“Yep,” BJ says, popping the  _ p. _ “That’s me.”

Hawkeye slides under the cover, apprehension suddenly weighing down on him heavier than a blanket ever could. “See, y’know, another reason why I haven’t been sleeping is because I don’t want to see the people I love  _ die,” _ he says, trying not to remember the dreams that reside in his brain, all too clearly. “I mean, it’s just not a pleasant sight. And, I mean, the last two nights I slept, they were about  _ you, _ and I’m even less of a fan of  _ you _ dying.”

“I- Hawkeye, would it help if I just- stayed? Here? As in, in the room?” BJ asks.

A wave of relief crashes over Hawkeye, and he draws back the covers on the other side of the bed, too caught up in memories of laughing in the supply room and grabbing at each other on an uncomfortable cot to remember BJ’s marriage. BJ’s happy, healthy, beautiful marriage, to happy, healthy, beautiful Peg. “Unless you meant a chair.”

BJ says nothing and gets into the bed. Hawkeye is suddenly hyperaware of BJ’s presence- warm, solid BJ, lying three inches from him, as if the last time this happened they didn’t screw each others’ brains out. “Hawkeye?” he says quietly.

“Yeah, what?”

“Can I- you know-”

“BJ, you’re  _ married, _ and this isn’t a war anymore.” Hawkeye can’t risk bringing BJ sorrow, tainting him with whatever filthy substance covers his own hands. And he can’t do that to bright, beautiful Peg, either- in a war, thousands of miles away, with her permission, that was all one thing, but now BJ lives with her and has sex with her and raises a  _ kid _ with her.  _ She’s too good to hurt, _ Hawkeye wants to say.

BJ laughs a little-  _ God, _ Hawkeye missed that laugh. “You know, for such a smart guy, you’re really an idiot sometimes.”

“Oh,  _ I’m _ an idiot? Pray tell, why?”

With a rustle of the covers, BJ turns over to face Hawkeye. “Peg said to give you this from her,” he says, and then his lips are on Hawkeye’s and-  _ God, that’s fucking wonderful. _

When BJ pulls back, Hawkeye just stares at him. “So- I mean- is she  _ okay _ with it, or…” Suddenly, the thought of Peggy Hunnicutt just being  _ okay _ with it doesn’t seem to be enough for him, and call him greedy, but he can’t help but  _ hope. _

“I love you-” even now, the declaration makes Hawkeye’s heart skip a beat- “and I love Peggy too, and she loves me and I think- well, I’m not sure how much can get across in letters, but I think she loves you too, and I think you love both of us? At least, enough to try?” BJ sounds so uncertain, but so  _ happy, _ and Hawkeye wants to lean over and kiss him until he’s delirious.

“Oh, I am  _ more _ than willing to try,” Hawkeye says. “Do you want to  _ try _ right now?” he asks, accompanying the request with an eyebrow wiggle.

BJ leans forward, slinging his arm over Hawkeye’s hip, and then- “Hawkeye, you need to  _ sleep!” _ he chastises.

_ Fuck. Sleeping. _ The apprehension returns tenfold. “Y’know, I’m in the market for something that would tire me out.”

“Nice try, Hawk.” BJ pauses for a moment. “Seriously, Hawkeye, I’m worried. Could you- I mean, could you try again? Please?”

Hawkeye weighs his options. Either he can sleep, or he can pass out while doing something. Or he can die, but that’s something that his father and BJ would undoubtedly disapprove of. “I’ll give it a shot. But if five o’clock rolls around and these peepers are still open, I’m getting my ass out of bed.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

It takes a while. Five hours, actually. But eventually, his brain gives up- maybe it’s BJ’s warm body pressed next to his, maybe it’s the fact that he’s been up for two and a half days straight, maybe it’s because of a fucking butterfly flapping its wings- and he finally,  _ finally _ falls into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! kudos/comments/criticism always appreciated. my tumblr is @acanoftrash if you want to drop me a line!


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